Category: Uncategorized

We took the canoe out to Aztalan State Park for a short trip down the Crawfish River…

It was a great day for it, being about 70 degrees and sunny, in fact we even got a bit sunburned (which was not good.) The river itself was muddy as heck, and you couldn’t see into the water at all. We did manage to see a bunch of turtles, including a huge snapping turtle.

As far as a canoeing river, it was ok, but not great. I prefer a lot more twists and turns and clearer water…

(Oh, this was also the first attempt at strapping the canoe on top of the CR-V and I’m glad to say that worked out fine as well.)

Do you watch or create videoblogs? Help Andreas out with the Great Videoblogger Documentation ’06 survey. If enough people fill it out, it might just mean more cat videos on the internet…

I’ve been working on a site that will use osCommerce, which seems like a nice package, but ugh, the old HTML 4.01 needs to go… Aren’t most of us using XHTML 1.0 by now?

Other than that, I’m getting somewhat used to the way that osCommerce is structured. I’m not saying I like it, but at least I’m getting used to it. (Oh, and the Javascript really needs an overhaul!)

I’ve seen too many organizations put usability last. They treat it like an afterthought. Functionality comes first, right? While having something that actually functions is important, having something that actually works is just as imporant…

What is the difference between something that functions and something that works? I think it’s usability. For instance, if you’ve got an approval system that sends an email to someone, requires them to log into a system, navigate to the proper place, type in a name, and do a search, all before they can approve (or reject) something, that might be a process that is functional, but it sure isn’t very usable. Sure it works, but it is too much work!

Harness the power of the information that you have. When you send the email, provide a link. This link should take the user directly to a page where they are presented with the information they need to approve, reject, or defer something. Does this seem like common sense? Many systems do this, yet many systems fail here, and it’s the users, not the developers that suffer.

The developers write the code, and hope that they do it right, and that is it. The users have to actually use these systems, day in, and day out, and if anyone feels the pain, it’s the users, not the developers. And believe me, the last thing you want is a group of users complaining over and over about how much work it takes to do a simple task in the system you built. Bad developer! Change your ways…

Podcasts are great. We’ve know this for years. Some of us more than others, but I digress… This is a request for people who speak at conferences. Please repeat the question!

Here’s the problem. I’m listening to a podcast from some conference where some smart person is talking, and they are taking questions, and you suddenly hear 30 seconds of near-silence, and then you hear the speaker answer. This isn’t always the case, but often the folks in the crowd asking questions are not mic’d, or you just can’t hear them. So you get something like this:

(whispers…)

Followed by:

RSS. Definitely it has been RSS…

Of course you don’t know if the question was “What is the most important part of your application?” or “What has been the biggest headache to deal with?” So you’re left guessing. This is easily solved if the speaker repeats each question before answering it.

I know, I should probably just attend all of these conferences instead of just listening to them. If you want to sponsor me, just get in touch…